TY - JOUR

T1 - Personal norms of sustainability and farm management behavior

AU - Olbrich, Roland

AU - Quaas, Martin Friedrich

AU - Baumgärtner, Stefan

PY - 2014/8/6

Y1 - 2014/8/6

N2 - We empirically study personal norms of sustainability, conceptualized according to the norm-activation theory and operationalized under the notion of strong ecological-economic sustainability. Our case study is commercial cattle farming in semi-arid rangelands of Namibia, a system that is subject to extensive degradation. Using survey data, we characterize farmers’ personal ecosystems and income norms, study their determinants, and analyze their impact on actual management based on the dual-preferences model. We find that ecosystem and income norms are heterogeneous across farmers and independent from each other. Furthermore, farmers with better environmental and financial farm conditions have more demanding norms. We find no evidence for a significant impact of norms on actual management, which provides an explanation for the observed degradation of the system.

AB - We empirically study personal norms of sustainability, conceptualized according to the norm-activation theory and operationalized under the notion of strong ecological-economic sustainability. Our case study is commercial cattle farming in semi-arid rangelands of Namibia, a system that is subject to extensive degradation. Using survey data, we characterize farmers’ personal ecosystems and income norms, study their determinants, and analyze their impact on actual management based on the dual-preferences model. We find that ecosystem and income norms are heterogeneous across farmers and independent from each other. Furthermore, farmers with better environmental and financial farm conditions have more demanding norms. We find no evidence for a significant impact of norms on actual management, which provides an explanation for the observed degradation of the system.

KW - Sustainability sciences, Management & Economics

KW - personal norms

KW - norm-activation theory

KW - sustainability

KW - dual-preferences model

KW - semi-arid rangelands

KW - commercial cattle farming

KW - commercial cattle farming

KW - Dual-preferences model

KW - Norm-activation theory

KW - Personal norms

KW - Semi-arid rangelands

KW - sustainability

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/dd99ed1e-29a9-3ce1-a667-fe46b2bdbe92/

U2 - 10.3390/su6084990

DO - 10.3390/su6084990

M3 - Journal articles

VL - 6

SP - 4990

EP - 5017

JO - Sustainability

JF - Sustainability

SN - 2071-1050

IS - 8

ER -